Friday, November 11, 2005

Is this how Marie Antoinette spent her last months? Was that a fiddle I heard? Was Nero there? An intimate little get together for seven hundred close friends to…what? Socialize? Raise money? The group was subdued; the events of the past week have taken the joy out of what should have been a glitzy, superfluous evening. There were many empty chairs at the tables and indication of unused tickets and people started heading for the exits at the finish of dinner. We were among them.

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Getting ready I sat on the bench looking into my closet and thought; this job even skews your wardrobe. I have a half dozen formal dresses. Enough I figured that I wouldn’t need to wear the same dress twice in a season, but maybe not this season. Not fancy cocktail dresses, there are about sixteen of those. But honest to goodness the Queen has invited you to dinner at Buckingham Palace and you’re standing there in you skivvies fretting over which confection to wear, formal dresses.

A habit my college friends and I have is to go through each other’s closets to see what we have, when Rachel and Amy were here they went through mine. “Kim when do you get a chance to wear these?” It’s become a hobby and they were bought at re-sale was my answer. And that was true; three of them even came from the same woman. A socialite who wears a dress once and then sells it. We’re the same size and the woman who owns the shop calls me when she gets something in. I wish I knew who the socialite was and I could cut out the middleman.

The questions stopped when they found the lingerie chest and then I took them to find their own treasures.

Yes, we were thinking of sending the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue you! I'm not expecting the wooden carts of yore to soon roll in the streets, (I mean afterall, they'd have to get past the flaming cars, right?), but it's still a bit worrisome. I imagine it puts a damper on all sorts of evening activity. It may take some weeks yet to clear the streets too. That's where the opportuinity reaction comes in. In any case keep safe & Cheers, 'VJ'